


It Starts With a Peek

by goldenslumber



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: F/M, Fighting, Unresolved Sexual Tension, naked
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-11
Updated: 2013-03-11
Packaged: 2017-12-04 23:08:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/716130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goldenslumber/pseuds/goldenslumber
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Jaime finds it almost amusing that they find themselves bathing together, once more."</p>
            </blockquote>





	It Starts With a Peek

**Author's Note:**

> Written for this prompt:
> 
> #29 — "The enemies take Jaime and Brienne by surprise in a state of undress (the reason and the specific of ‘undress’ at author's discretion). The fight follows, accompanied by silly jokes."
> 
> Enjoy. Feedback is always appreciated.

He peeks. It's not even a proper look, really – it's in the reflection of the polished blade of his sword. There is a blur of pale skin, a form, big and ungainly, and arms over the head, back arced, pert breasts heaved toward the sky, and then he drops the hilt and allows the tip of the sword to hit the ground.  
  
From behind, he hears a splash and a call for a coast clear. Jaime sets the sword down and uses his left hand to undo the laces of his shirt and pants – somehow fumbling more than usual, the blur of the last few day's events lingering in thought and unfocusing him: a peculiar quiet, a vast stillness, has settled between them, and it gets on his nerves, a little – makes him think back to the time when the wench had ignored him, fresh out of Riverrun, because of who he was, because he is the Kingslayer, of course.. and well, he does not feel, nor look like the Kingslayer.. then again, the wench does not look like the Maid of Tarth. Her sapphire eyes seem duller, and the unexplained scars around neck and ravishing her cheek, they do not improve the ever homely visage.  
  
(And he tells himself the peek did not count. He'd seen plenty more in the baths of Harrenhal – and by all rights, that little flash of her, only a small glimpse of pale pink nipples – well, that should not have roused a  _secret_  curling of heat in his lower abdomen..)  
  
Jaime finds it almost amusing that they find themselves bathing together, once more. Except this time it is not steaming baths, but a river, frigid from the looming winter – this one, at least is a smaller branch, a stream really, without corpses clogging the flow and befouling the waters.  
  
 _No_ , he thinks, as he approaches, naked as his name day,  _the water is untouched_. He smiles dimly, watching the wench wade out in her own little corner, her broad back to him. Brienne's efforts are in vain; he sees her bare backside through the crystal clear surface, and he sinks his foot into the water – suddenly distracted from her body by the bite of the chill. “You, wench, are insane!” Jaime calls, lowering himself reluctantly onto the bank of the river, clumsy to steady himself with his gold hand behind his back and bracing the other on his legs.  
  
Brienne snorts, he thinks. She deftly cups handfuls of water and runs them down her shoulders and over her neck – and Jaime watches with unguarded eyes, wondering if the cold helps soothe the ragged, deep, red rope-burn circling her neck. It probably does, and not to mention countless bruises and marks littering her limbs and torso, since she is already to her waist in the stream, unflinching.  
  
 _Her walls have grown harder, and surer, in the time I've not seen her,_  Jaime knows. Part of him is curious, wondering if her walls include him, if he's on the other side of them, unable to burrow passed – and perhaps, he's never been on the inside of the walls... Kingslayers don't generally mix in with the group of honorable knights. But if Jaime knows one thing for certain, it's that he can at least see through the walls, partly, and if he  _didn't_  know that those marks on her neck were from a noose, then he would be a fool, and no real knight of the Kingsguard at all.  
  
Jaime dares to sink his legs a little more in the river. A dull wind whispers through the surrounding greenery and he eyes their piles of clothes a little ways off, and Oathkeeper, tucked into the bed roll on the back of Brienne's horse. His own sword lays in the grass, where he set it – his mind flashes back to the peak and he finds the silence boring, overbearing, and not enough to distract him from the unsavory bath ahead of him. He turns his head to Brienne. “What were you saying about a Mad Mouse in Duskendale, wench?”  
  
“Nothing, Kingslayer,” comes her voice.  
  
That is a savage pinch on his nerves. “Jaime.”  
  
The wench turns her head slightly, peering over a freckled shoulder, raising a thin eyebrow.  
  
“My name is Jaime,” he repeats.  
  
“And mine is not wench.”  
  
“I've not forgotten.” Jaime feels an urge to tell her a lot of different things he's not forgotten – but he resides to silence, when Brienne's head suddenly whips to the side, sending a flay of straw colored hair to slap against her back.  
  
Jaime is on his feet in moments, two steps onto the bank and he makes a dive for his sword. Too late. A foot flies out and catches him bluntly in the gut, sending him reeling for a moment, and he staggers backward – a warm hand catches his lower back, slips around his waist and shoves him even further back, until he is splashed into the stream, stones digging into backside, and icy water biting warm flesh.  
  
There is the familiar clamor of steel on steel, singing and tinging and ending in abrupt breaks. He feels a bit like a child's doll, to be shaken and shoved and manipulated, but once his vision clears and he drags himself out of the water, he gets an eyeful more than a peek – thick waist twisting to the left, sturdy arms braced and hunched and kept close to defend the small swell of breasts, and the dance of freckles slipping down her body, dovetailing the glistening drops of water, flicking off her skin with each pivot or parting of thighs – but only fleetingly, before he is up, too, taking in the opponent. A man, a knight, though his armor is mismatched, and doubtlessly stolen from corpses on his travels, an inch shorter than Brienne, skinner, too, and failing sword skills.  
  
Jaime finds the ruby studded hilt, pulls it free and grips it in his useless left hand. It would do much better in Brienne's grasp; she fares fine with his own sword, but Oathkeeper would have snapped the enemy's sword in half by now. Under the ferocity of the wench's blow, fierce – and  _upset_ , Jaime would say,  _peculiarly_ , the stray robber was wilting in the face of the battle. The man must have seen them before on the road, watched for awhile, and noted them to be a cripple and an ugly woman, easy targets, to anyone's standards, and thought to cut them down, take their horses and supplies, then make off untouched..  
  
Jaime almost pities him.  
  
Until he sees the sword bounce off hers, and slide to the left, and catch on her bicep, slicing a dash of scarlet into her. Oathkeeper is thrust into the parrying position and he does not care for a face to face fight, an honorable fight, a  _knightly_  fight, when he cuts at the man's flank, Valyrian metal slipping through mail, cloth, skin, as silk, meeting a slight resistance at the ribs, before Jaime pulls back. A cry issues from the man's mouth, and Jaime catches the robber's shoulder in his gold hand, awkwardly tucked beneath an armpit, sending a twinge of discomfort through his wrist – with this for leverage, Jaime withdraws Oathkeeper slowly, lethal edges whispering against the flow of blood, running out of him. Smudges from the man's hands, that grapple to close the gaping wound, catch on Jaime's chest and sides and legs, and with a expression of disgust, he heaves the dying man from him.  
  
Brienne has not moved, but watches the robber's last mewling breaths, as he lay in the grass. There is a vague, but wild look to her widened eyes.  _Stunning eyes_. Jaime watches her, instead of the man he's just killed – another on his list, he supposes, of petty justices – and there is no need to peak, when the wench stands there, legs slightly apart, both hands clasped over the hilt of his sword, that is pointed down, sinking into dirt, holding her upright, as her body careens forward slightly, lips jutting out, blood crawling down an arm –  _another scar for her knightly collection_ , Jaime thinks, feeling the anticipating bruises throb on his backside.  
  
“Old habits die hard, don't they, wench?” Jaime says, finally.  
  
Brienne's eyes fly to his; he can see flickering behind them, as she tries to find out what he's talking about, checks for insults and ulterior motives and things she's long had to find in the words of others before speaking. Up until that moment, she seemed unconcerned about her nakedness, but when her gaze thoughtfully lowers, they widen – and her freckly face turns red, her arms drop the sword, and wrap around herself, one long arm slung around breast, and another hiding the bushel of blonde hair between her legs – and Jaime finds his eyes lingering more on the cut running dark on her arm than anything else..  
  
“My name is Brienne,” the wench replies, after her hesitation – she could not figure out his meaning, and it was a safe enough reply, honest and familiar.  
  
“You call me Kingslayer, then throw yourself into the point of a sword for me the next second.”  
  
Brienne shrugs a bit. She moves toward the pile of clothes on the ground. “I do not wish you dead.” Her voice is oddly soft.  
  
“What do you wish of me, then?” he asks, in frustration. Jaime looks at the sword in his left hand, still dripping the life's blood of the robber and he lifts it to an eye's level. “What use am I but to break oaths?” he wonders more to himself, than out loud, as he attempts – and fails – to remember what was so amusing about the name of this particular sword. _What use am I when I can only kill a man when he's distracted at the front, and that I'm the one thrown to safety during a battle, and when I have lost the hand that made me who I was.._  He sighs, and holds out Oathkeeper to Brienne. “This is yours.”  
  
She's got on a loose tunic, scratchy and brown, and her hair is swept over her face, frizzy from the water. The fabric ends before mid-thigh and Jaime shamelessly drops his gaze there. Only to lift it at the sound of her reply, “It's your sword, Ser,” and her brow is drawn tight in confusion.  
  
“No. I particularly remember. I gave it to you.”  
  
“Yes. You did. But only to find Sansa Stark. It's still yours.”  
  
“I am not befitting of such a fine piece of metal,” Jaime says, a rueful twist of his lips confronting his bitterly-amused tone. He takes a step closer to her, and is miffed by the way her face turns a shade impossibly pinker. Then he remembers, he's still naked, covered in blood. The smile is suddenly not so hard to muster. “Wench, it's not anything you've not seen.”  
  
Brienne's eyes are somewhere above them, lost in the clouds, and her hand reaches out to take the sword – probably thinking that it is the way to get him dressed again, but Jaime watches the reaching fingers, with a prickle of something,  _something_  high-strung, and a little kiddish, poking at the lining of his stomach, like small pin-needles, cold and unsettling, nipping at him... and his hand draws the sword back an inch, just before her fingers touch it. Thin, pale, the appendages move forward again, cautiously – blindly, as Brienne's face is tipped away – and Jaime's hand moves again, slowly.. back and back... until he's got his arm folded against his chest.  
  
He swears they both jump when her fingers come in contact with the warm skin of his chest. Jaime was expecting it, since – he supposes – he was instigating it, as well as watching her slow progression – a coiling of anticipation gathering in his chest – but even so, there is still a jolt at the contact. Before the wench's hand jerks back, her eyes fly down and meet his dead serious ones. Then a grin for a fool slips onto his face and he offers Oathkeeper to her without grudge. Brienne takes the hilt from his hand swiftly, a permanent etch of red in her cheeks, turns on the balls of her feet and hurriedly pulls on the rest of her clothes. Jaime does the same, but much more slowly.  
  
And he swears – swears on his honor, for all it's worth – she peeks, too.


End file.
